[inopinatus]

Having written a few of these in my time I'd like to pick out the best and the worst.

The worst is surely from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I find the prose florid and demeaning. Lowlights include implying that many "well qualified individuals" applied, using a sentence structure that clearly suggests you are not counted amongst them.

Yale runs a close second worst, for their brutal and brief suggestion that you go "elsewhere".

The best is from the Colorado School of Mines. It is pleasant, warm, apologetic. In particular, it bothers to express appreciation of time & energy invested, and it speaks of a "closer match" of the shortlisted candidates rather than pompously announce how grand their field was.

[exim]

I really liked one from ETH, Zurich. It was a personal letter (i.e. not generated) mentioning that for the particular job they found another person, whose skills were more appropriate at the moment. And the sender asked me to keep an eye for further openings.

[basugasubaku]

In case anyone else had trouble:

University of Colorado at Boulder: pg. 19

Yale: pg. 26

Colorado School of Mines: pg. 14

I must agree the Colorado School of Mines struck me as warm as well, from the get-go, before I read your comment.

[jetti]

One thing that struck me, and in my eyes is the worst, is the response from Colgate. Just starting with "Dear Applicant" makes it seem like they don't care. Granted they may have already finished the search but they could still at least address the letter to an individual person and not a generic person.